Forbes columnist Steven Salzberg and author-investigator Joe Nickell will each be awarded the 2012 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, to be presented by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry at the CFI Summit in October.

Skepticism and the Singularity

August 20, 2010

A Brave New World?

"Do you want to attend a
conference about artificial intelligence?" I was asked by Sean McCabe,
former intern to James Randi.

"Sure,"
I responded, not knowing that he was referring to the Singularity Summit,
the annual conference held by the Singularity Institute. This is artificial
intelligence (AI) with a philosophy behind it.

The Technological Tipping
Point

The futurist concept of "the
singularity" is far from Aldous Huxley's early futurist ideas of
subliminal learning and reproductive technology in Brave New World.
"Technological singularity" is the theory, prediction, and objective
that artificial intelligence will soon surpass human intelligence.

A
range of ideas and ideologies underpin the singularity. Back in 1965,
I.J. Good envisioned an "intelligence explosion," leading to the
invention of "ultraintelligent machines."1 In 1993 Vernor
Vinge postulated that "superintelligence" will render us the self-executioners
of humankind, creating our own obsolescence and ending "the human
era."2 Ray Kurzweil forecasts that science will soon emulate
then exceed the capabilities of the human brain, citing the exponential
growth trend in technological development as evidence for his theories.3

These
beliefs intersect with transhumanism, which aims to improve human characteristics
and capabilities using science and technology while considering the
resulting ethical issues. There are humanitarian ambitions to overcome
poverty and disease, extend human longevity, and address problems of
dwindling resources. Then there are bold claims that we will ultimately
reverse engineer the human brain, replicate consciousness, and graduate
from programming computers to programming people.

A Computational Critical
Mass

Skeptics are often skeptical
of the singularity.

Some
skeptics see singulatarians as optimists at best or extremists at worst.
Some think that the proponents posit unrealistic timelines and have
unrealistic goals of a scientific Utopia. Others see singulatarians
as evil doctors playing eugenics in the transhumanist name of "human
enhancement." Some see the singularity as science fiction, with its
dreams of immortality and the ability to upload and download the human
brain.

Skeptics
often draw parallels between singulatarians and cults or religious fervor.
Kurzweil is called a guru or mystic, while The Singularity is Near
title smacks a little of "the end of the world is nigh." P.Z. Myers
describes him as "just another Deepak Chopra for the computer science
cognoscenti."4

More
than once that weekend I heard the singularity referred to as "the
rapture for nerds." Conversely, skeptics are accused of being closed-minded,
technology-resistant neo-luddites. However, there was no brainwashing
or propaganda at the Singularity Summit. There was no hard-selling or
recruitment. There was no introduction to the theory, let alone indoctrination.
Moreover, there was no single opinion as to how, when, where, or if
the singularity would occur. There is no unified theory.

Also,
there is no agreed-upon timeframe for the realization of these achievements.
There are as many projected dates for "the coming of the singularity"
as there are for armageddon. Singulatarians speculate that it will occur
by 2020, 2030, or 2045. Michael Shermer has quipped that advances in
AI are always ten years away from success.

The Singularity is Not-So-Near

The summit was a conglomeration
of scholars, students, science enthusiasts, and technophiles with diverse
backgrounds, all bound by an interest in emerging technologies.

The
conference was interdisciplinary, although most of the presenters treated
their areas of expertise without necessarily correlating it to the singularity.
They were not invariably advocates. In contrast, biophysicist Gregory
Stock and neurobiologist Dennis Bray spoke pessimistically about the
theories with reference to their own fields. It became apparent to me
that the singularity is mostly about conjecture, and discussions raise
more questions than answers.

However,
the summit was valuable for knowledge-sharing, networking, and introducing
the latest advances in science. The seminars covered a wide range of
themes central to the singularity, including neuroscience, evolutionary
psychology, energy, robotics, machine learning, nanotechnology, and
biotechnology. Some academics presented their research into life extension,
which seems more realistic than notions of ending "involuntary death."
Ben Goertzel examined the genomes of fruit flies and the "superflies"
he has bred for longevity; Ellen Heber-Katz, who works in mammalian
regeneration, discussed the implications of Goertzel's work for humans.

There
were many novel talks, including that by Steve Mann, the "world's
first cyborg." Interested in wearable computers, Mann joked "eye
am a camera" while wearing a live-streaming camera over one eye. Due
to an influx of viewers, his retina is now password protected. He also
helped invent the haudraulophone, a musical instrument that produces
sound from water vibrations. Mandayam Srinivasan spoke about his research
in the field of haptics and the creation of the tadoma method that allows
vision-impaired people to "see" through touch. David Hanson is a
roboticist who designs and develops robots with human-like expressive
capabilities. This was one of the few lectures at the summit that investigated
social cognition, where psychology plays a secondary role to biology.
As Kurzweil conceded, consciousness may be too subjective to measure,
but this can't be overlooked if smarter-than-human intelligence is
the ultimate ambition.

Skeptical During Singular
Times

There was still plenty of critical
thinking at the conference. The speakers treated the scientific method,
the evolution vs. creationism debate, and the importance of Ockham's
Razor. Rationalist issues are a vital part of transhumanism, after all,
and one of the objectives of the Singularity Institute is to "encourage
rational thought about our future as a species."5

There
was also a large contingent of skeptics in attendance, including Skepchick
blogger Sam Ogden, magician Andrew Mayne,
the James Randi Educational Foundation's D.J. Grothe, and James Randi
himself-the plenary speaker of the summit.

At
6:15 pm on Sunday afternoon, a time at most conferences when the crowd
has usually thinned and the stragglers are falling asleep, the room
was filled to capacity with people waiting to hear from Randi, who called
himself the "curmudgeon of the conference" and looked a little like
the author of On the Origin of Species. "The Charles Darwin
look is good for me, don't you agree?" Randi asked. When the audience
responded with applause, he added, "Charles Darwin is dead; remember
that."

Randi
remarked that we all make assumptions. For example, the audience assumed
that he was talking into a hand-held microphone-until he switched
on the beard trimmer he was using as a prop. We also assumed that he
was wearing spectacles, too, until he revealed that they contained empty
frames. His point was that assumptions are natural and necessary, but
sometimes they can lead our thinking in the wrong direction.

Randi
recounted a story about one of the times a caller announced that they
had "won the Million Dollar Challenge." This particular call was
from the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory at the University of California–Berkeley.
The claim was that someone there defied the laws of physics with a mysterious
matchstick that could stand on its own. Within minutes, Randi's assistant
faxed the caller a page from a magic book explaining this common trick.

Randi's
lesson for the audience was that even experts can be deceived. He cited
another instance, when a physicist accompanied him to a magic show.
Amazed by a feat of levitation, the scientist marveled that the magician
"must have used superconductivity!" Then he proceeded to provide
a convoluted explanation for how this could be achieved. Randi replied
simply, "No; it's an illusion!"

We
can be fooled if we see only through the eyes of our own expertise.
As Randi put it, "Sometimes you don't use your brain because you're
too busy using your education." To demonstrate that the simplest explanation
is often the correct one, Randi showed some classic footage of his Peter
Popoff exposé on the Johnny Carson show and a performance of psychic
surgery. He mused that as long as we still believe in magic, we can
be fooled.

As
an inventor himself, Randi encouraged the spreading of innovative ideas
tempered with a healthy skepticism. Disappointingly, some attendees
didn't grasp the relevance of a magician speaking at a conference
about the singularity. However, skepticism is critical to a movement
that is essentially about prediction.

Karen Stollznow

Karen Stollznow is an author and skeptical investigator with a doctorate in linguistics and a background in history and anthropology. She is an associate researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and a director of the San Francisco Bay Area Skeptics. A prolific skeptical writer for many sites and publications, she is the “Good Word” Web columnist for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the “Bad Language” columnist for Skeptic magazine, a frequent contributor to Skeptical Inquirer, and managing editor of CSI’s Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice. Dr. Stollznow is a host of the Monster Talk podcast and writer for the Skepbitch and Skepchick blogs, as well as for the James Randi Educational Foundation’s Swift. She can be reached via email at kstollznow[at]centerforinquiry.net.

Content copyright CSI or the respective copyright holders. Do not redistribute without obtaining permission. Thanks to the ESO for the image of the Helix Nebula, also NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team for the image of NGC 3808B (ARP 87).